Low Graphics Site
 
 
 
 
 
 
|
|
|
|
January 15, 2002
|
Tuesday
|
Shawwal 30, 1422
|
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
Mohammad Ali Jauher and the Turks
The unkindest cut of all
What to be proud of?
Abandoning our captive citizens
Committee on Kashmir
Long-distance calls
PTCL customer services
Executive and judiciary
Any critics around?
MSF work in refugee camps
ISI bashing in the press
Role of the union councils
Pensioners’ woes
Mohammad Ali Jauher and the Turks
IN THE course of his extremely interesting comments on Maulana Mohammad Ali (Dawn Metropolitan Jan, 9), Ariel raises the question why, in his article on ‘Choice of the Turks’, Mohammad Ali did not back the idea of the Turks joining the Germans in World War I and recommended neutrality. The fact is that, given the unthinking fanaticism of the Khilafatists, Indian Muslims had far too many misconceptions about this and their hero Enver Pasha.
Surprisingly, Turkish opinion, including that of the Committee of Union and Progress, the ‘Young Turks’, was solidly pro-British. When the war broke out, the Turks tried very hard to persuade the Allies to let Turkey join them! The Allies did not want this because that would justify a German attack on Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which the Turks could not defend. That would then risk the Russian Black Sea fleet being bottled up. The Allies, therefore, tried very
|